Life As A Bowl of Cherries
by Mark of the Asphodel
Summary: The peasant girl's request to Ryan was simple: present the cherries, the gift of a grateful nation, to Prince Marth.  With the rebel army on the task, so simple a request becomes rather more... tangled.  FE12.


**Life As a Bowl of Cherries**

I do not own _Fire Emblem_ or any of its characters.

This is some cracky FE12 nonsense that's been kicking around my hard drive for some time. I've dusted it off simply because it is a silly little genfic and people are saying we need more gen. There are implications of unrequited Rody/Cecil and Melissa/Marth, but that's all. This shifts through the POV of quite a few characters, starting with Ryan.

* * *

><p><em>Somewhere between Grust and Raman, 607.<em>

"D-don't come any closer."

Ryan knew he wasn't supposed to shoot civilians, but the pigtailed girl with the basket in her hands was awfully close to the camp entrance, and after that whole horrible scene with the assassins the year before, Ryan had learned the hard way that sweet-looking girls could be very, very dangerous. So it was a relief when the girl set down her basket on the ground and took a few steps back.

Even so, he kept his crossbow trained on her. She didn't seem scared though, and when she spoke to him it sounded like she wasn't taking it personally. That was nice; Ryan hated it when people thought he was being unkind just by doing his duty. It took a minute for Ryan to figure out what she was saying. Grustians sounded like cows.

"Please give these to Prince Marth with our thanks."

"Ah... sure! I mean, yes I will. Thank you."

The girl curtsied and left, which meant Ryan was alone on guard duty with a strange gift in front of him. It looked like a basket of fruit, maybe, but you never could tell...

"Help!"

Ryan knew when he needed backup.

-x-

Leave it to Ryan to send up a great fuss over a gift basket. Sometime Norne wanted to box the boy's ears, if only for his own good. Then again, he'd done right by them all in making sure the basket didn't get into camp without a proper inspection, so Norne decided Ryan's instincts were sound even if his nerves weren't the best.

"Are they poison?" he asked now. "Cherries are supposed to be red."

"No, and I've seen _these_ before. They don't grow in Altea, that's for sure." The cherries were fat and lovely, each one a pale creamy yellow with a pink blush like rose petals. Just the sight of them made Norne's mouth water, but Ryan was right about the whole business being a tad suspicious.

"You watch the gate and I'll deal with this," she told him. "If I start screaming or fall over, well..."

He just nodded at her with big bright eyes. Ryan hadn't quite reached the level of being able to get the kind of joke that wasn't entirely a joke.

Norne set the basket down on a good flat stump and carefully emptied it to make sure there wasn't anything funny in it- broken glass, or rusted nails, tiny snakes or poisonous spiders. She didn't find anything, and all the cherries looked just perfect, without any bruised or dents.

"Better eat one, just to be sure."

She ended up eating a couple. Just to be sure.

-x-

"Hey, Melissa! You're going to see Prince Marth?"

"Of course I am," she replied. It was her highly important duty to see to the prince's welfare in _every_ degree, and as he'd been too busy to leave his tent that entire afternoon, Melissa was absolutely going to check up on him.

"Bring him this, compliments of the grateful citizens of Grust."

Norne-the-archer dropped a basket into Melissa's hands and went off whistling a jaunty tune. Altean girls were very strange, Melissa thought, but she'd have to get used to it.

The gift she'd handed Melissa, though, was lovely. White cherries were rare and special, and could only be harvested for three weeks out of the year. An entire basket of juicy, blushing white cherries was _such_ a rare and special gift that of course Melissa would be pleased to give it to her prince. The basket looked a just little shabby, so Melissa took one of her hair ribbons and tied it around the handle make for a better presentation. Much better, she decided.

"Oh, you again?" said the guard at Prince Marth's tent. "What is it this time, sister?"

Melissa drew herself up to her full height- four feet and ten inches, which her grandmother always said was _most_ demure and feminine.

"I've brought Prince Marth a _very special present_."

"All right," said the guard.

Prince Marth was at his camp desk, bent over some very important-looking papers, but Melissa knew he was happy to see her even if he didn't raise his eyes from the work spread out in front of him.

"I've brought this for you. It's a _very special present_ and you must be sure to enjoy it." And so Melissa set the basket down on an empty patch on the desk.

"Thank you, Melissa."

Melissa rocked back on her heels, pleased at the praise from her beloved (never mind that he still hadn't so much at glanced up at her- he was so very busy, after all). She had one more thing to tell him before the guard escorted her out.

"Don't work too hard, dearest!"

-x-

"_What _did she just call me?" Marth set down his quill and brushed his long bangs away from his eyes. "I seem to be imagining things."

Dealing with Sister Melissa was always... odd, but her brief visit seemed to have increased the ache building behind his eyes. He looked for a moment at the gift she'd left for him, the delicate basket with bright ribbons wrapped around the handle. The cherries within it looked bright and hard, like lacquered balls of wood.

Apparently he was supposed to eat them? Prince Marth dealt with the gift basket in the way he handled all issues- he summoned his tactician for assistance.

"I'm really not hungry at all, Jagen. Why don't you have someone deliver them to the twins? That might cheer them up somewhat."

He didn't really believe a basket of cherries would do much to cheer up a thirteen-year-old who was orphaned, grieving, and a long way from home. The cherries might well end up knocked to the floor and trampled on for good measure, but sometimes there was a sort of release to be found in that kind of behavior...

Not that Prince Marth of Altea knew _anything_ about that.

-x-

Jagen was something else! The steel-eyed old man made Luke feel like a raw recruit all over again. There wasn't any arguing with his orders, no sir- as little as Luke liked this set of orders.

"I'm a _knight_, not a delivery boy." He sure hoped nobody caught him tripping through the camp carrying this dainty little basket. If Chris or Cecil saw him, he was catching hell and no doubt about it. Sir Luke, Altea's avenging sword, ferrying sweets to small children.

"These look really good," he muttered as he marched along, basket in hand. The cherries were as rosy as a pretty girl's cheeks. He took one by its stem and examined it at length; it promised to be tasty.

"And where are you going with those?"

Of all the people to run into! Sir Rody the Uptight didn't tease like Cecil, but he was his own brand of trouble for Luke.

"Just conveying some fruit to the prince and princess of Grust, at the request of our sovereign." Luke concluded his statement by taking a bite of the cherry he'd been looking over. The burst of juice flooded his mouth; it dripped a little, and Luke quickly wiped it away with the back of his hand.

"That's stealing," Rody said, like a prim old woman.

"It's my delivery fee," Luke replied, and popped another into his mouth. "C'mon, they're great. Have one."

He tossed a cherry toward Rody, but the other knight blocked with his hand and sent the cherry bouncing into the dust.

"Suit yourself," Luke said, and went on his way toward the tent where the royal twins of Grust were holed up with that stack of books they carried around.

-x-

"It's immoral to waste food in these terrible times," Rody said to himself. He gingerly picked the cherry up by its stem; it was a little dusty, but the skin hadn't split. He polished the cherry on his sleeve; the red blush on it glowed like an ember. It tasted light and sweet, with no sour-cherry tang or hint of bitterness- almost more like perfume than fruit.

"Sir Rody!"

Cecil. Of all the people to find him eating pilfered cherries, it would _have_ to be Cecil. Rody froze for a second while he considered his options, and decided he would have no choice but to swallow the pit to conceal his act.

"Rody, I can't find Chris or Luke- care for a sparring match? I'd rather it be swords, but we can use lances if you can't bear to be parted from yours..."

Her headband was askew and a trickle of perspiration ran down from it through the dust on her cheek.

"Sure, Cecil. I'll be ready in twenty minutes," replied Rody, taking care to keep his voice even. His throat felt seared from the cherrystone.

"Thanks! I'll be waiting!"

And then she was off in a blur of red and white.

"Such are the ways of transgressors," Rody muttered to himself. Cecil didn't notice the guilt... or certain other things. All she saw in him was someone ready to spar at a moment's notice.

-x-

"Good afternoon, Your Highnesses. May I present this most glorious gift to please your royal appetites?"

Yubello was relieved to see Sir Luke; the Altean knight seemed friendly and was usually smiling, and Yubello didn't associate him with bad news. So to see Sir Luke turn up with a basket of white cherries was something quite pleasant in Yubello's eyes.

"I don't like that man," Yumina said when the Altean had made a flourish-filled bow and left them. "He doesn't have the dignity of a true knight."

"He seems like a kind person," Yubello replied.

Yumina was already scrutinizing the gift.

"Those cherries look like they've been... used. And that ribbon is _dirty_."

"Does that mean we can't eat them?" The idea of turning up their noses at those cherries saddened Yubello greatly; white cherries were something he associated with perfect days in spring, with happy days before their father invited dragons to his court, with their mother...

Yubello had been looking at the cherries, but Yumina had been staring at her brother, and on seeing his eyes grow wide in dismay, her own resolve not to be distracted went soft.

"All right. I guess we do need to keep up our strength while we're studying."

-x-

The empty basket that had held the cherries was returned to Prince Marth later in the afternoon. Those keeping a close eye on the twins reported that there had been quite a cherrystone-spitting contest taking place in their tent- though the very idea of the sober Princess Yumina and her sweet-tempered brother doing something so childish and vulgar was not really believed by anyone. Also, the red ribbon that adorned the basket was not seen again, and none knew what had become of it. Not that anyone asked. But the eyes watching the twins did report that Princess Yumina had achieved another level of mastery in learning battle magic- specifically, Fire spells.

**The End**


End file.
